


Love in the Last Days of the Hellmouth

by For_That_Cotton_Candy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:07:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/For_That_Cotton_Candy/pseuds/For_That_Cotton_Candy
Summary: The last Valentine's Day before the end.





	

“Love In the Last Days of the Hellmouth”  
Buffy Season 7  
Three Vignettes  
Valentine’s Day Schmoop

 

***

It was late, nearly midnight, and Giles had taken refuge in Buffy’s laundry room, leaning up against the wall with a couple of pillows he’d been able to snag when the girls weren’t looking. He sat with his head back, eyes closed, one leg flung out wide over the Power Puff Girls sleeping bag he’d been given by Dawn, the other leg drawn up close, his arm resting on his knee, holding the drink he’d been sipping slowly for the past hour.

He listened. Giggling, bickering, the slamming of doors, the thud of feet running up and down the stairs. And the refrigerator. For God’s sake, those girls could eat.

This house was very alive. For now.

He sighed. An unknown enemy out there, and in here, dozens of girls he couldn’t help and most of whom would die, and the people that he loved the most, all of them, would probably die as well.

As to his own fate, well, he certainly held no illusions that he’d make it through this one.

None of them would.

He jumped when the door slammed and looked up to see Anya.

“Giles,” she said, breathless and nervous.

He frowned. “Anya? Is something wrong?”

“Yes. Yes, something is very, very wrong.”

The surge of adrenaline was immediate and heart pounding. He started to rise to his feet, hand on the battle axe at his side.

“Oh, no. Not that kind of wrong. Nobody’s dead or dying. Not that I know of, at least not yet.” She waved him off and he slid back down on to the floor and watched her as she started pacing and wringing her hands.

“Anya? What is it?”

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she said.

Again, he frowned, thinking. “So it is,” he said. “I’d totally forgotten.”

“Well, I haven’t,” she said, still pacing. “It used to be a busy day for me, you know, _lots_ of vengeance being exacted on Valentine’s Day. Busy, busy, busy! Death, curses – I was always at the top of my game on Valentine’s Day. I dreamed up curses you wouldn’t _believe_!”

“I’ve no doubt of that.” He smiled slightly, sipping his drink. She fell to her knees beside him. 

“Can I have some of that?”

He handed her his glass, watching her closely, and she downed it in one gulp. He shook his head and rummaged for the bottle beside him and refilled the glass.

“So, anyway,” she said, pulling her hair back out of her face. “Valentine’s Day, very busy day for a vengeance demon. And then, when I became human, you know, there was the . . . other side of it. The side I’d never seen, the . . . nice side. The romantic side.”

“Xander,” he said quietly.

“Yes. The Bastard. That’s what I call him now, in my head at least. The Bastard, capital B.”

He put his hand over his mouth to cover a grin.

“And now I’m pissed, because I don’t know what to do. He did all the nice and all the romance and now that’s all gone and I can’t wreak vengeance because _that’s_ all gone and now it’s the last Valentine’s Day I’ll ever celebrate and I’m stuck in a laundry room with tons of sweaty, smelly Potential Slayer clothing - those girls have hideous taste, by the way - and you.” She looked at him and rolled her eyes and sighed and he yanked the glass out of her hand.

“Thank you ever so much,” he said, taking a long, slow drink.

She sighed. “That’s not what I mean.” She leaned against the wall beside him and drew her knees up to her chest.

“What do you mean, Anya?” he asked. She rested her forehead against her knees and when he realized she was crying he slid one hand into the hair on the back of her neck. “Anya?” he said softly.

“It’s just . . . it’s just that I’m lonely, you know?” she mumbled. “Lonely and scared and I love Xander and I even think that I love Buffy and Willow and Dawn, and Spike, even, and not just because he’s very good at sex but because he takes care of me when he can, and it’s Valentine’s Day and I didn’t know what else to do because I _do_ know that I love you and we’re all going to die and it’s Valentine’s Day and that’s all about love, right? And I just wanted to tell you that, I guess.”

He was surprised by how much that touched him.

“Thank you, Anya,” he said.

She looked up at him. “Say it back.”

“What?”

“Say you love me. Unless, of course, you don’t, which wouldn’t surprise me at all because nobody else really seems to and I haven’t heard it in a very long time and it would just be nice if –“

“I love you.” 

“What?” She blinked, mopping away tears with one hand.

“I said, I love you.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then knocked him over with one of her extremely enthusiastic embraces, spilling good scotch all over Blossom’s face in the process.

“Thank you,” she whispered against his neck. “I really, really, really needed to hear that. And I kind of believe it.”

He hauled himself upright, pushing her away slightly. “I’m not saying that just to comfort you, Anya. I do.”

“Really?” she said hopefully. “Because, you know, I realize that I’ve always been kind of an outsider and rude and saying inappropriate things at inappropriate times but –“

“Stop it,” he said, refilling the glass. “You’re part of the family. And I’m finding it quite tiresome, the way you continually put yourself down. You keep repeating what you’ve been told, Anya, about your behavior and the things that you say.”

“But-“

“But nothing. It’s just who you are, and you should stop apologizing for it.”

She sighed. “Thank you, Rupert. I would enjoy having sex with you now but I know you would never do that because you love Xander and that would hurt him and I love him and I wouldn’t want to hurt him that way, either, and I love you and I wouldn’t want to put you in that position, so all this love means no sex for us.”

He sighed and then allowed himself a grin. “Right. You see? You’re much more sensitive than you give yourself credit for.”

She smiled. “Yes. I am, aren’t I?” she said proudly.

“And Anya,” he said softly, putting one hand to her cheek and looking at her intently. “Just because I won’t doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.”

She inhaled sharply, staring at him, and then started crying, scooting down to rest her head on his thigh.

“Are you all right? Did I say the wrong thing?” he asked.

“No. No. You said exactly the right thing. Almost as good as the actual having of the sex.”

He smiled slightly and started stroking her hair.

“Can I stay with you tonight? Just for tonight, sex-free?” she asked.

“Of course, my dear,” he said.

“In a different time, a different place . . .” she whispered.

“Yes,” he softly in agreement.

Later on, when everything was over, he would think about that night and mourn.

***

“Xander?”

“Hey, Will.”

“What’s up with the cold and the outside and the beer?” She sat down beside him, huddling underneath her jacket and sneaking a sip of his beer.

“Just gettin’ some air,” he said, leaning back on his elbows. “What’re you doing out here? It’s Valentine’s Day, shouldn’t you and Kennedy be doing, you know, those naughty, no-no things you won’t ever tell me about?”

She grinned and nudged him with her shoulder. “You know, if I actually take the time to think about that, it kind of disturbs me that you want to know all the slurpy details of my sex life.”

“Slurpy?” He made a show of staring dreamily off into the night.

“Stop it, you perv,” she said, sliding one hand underneath his coat and around his waist and pulling him close. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, considering the fact that we’re all about to die and that I still miss Anya and Andrew is turning me back into the geek I’d thought I’d left behind in seventh grade. I thought hanging with the Slayer had killed the geek, but the geek LIVES!”

She laughed. “The geek has always lived. The geek in me is the geek in you. And there’s nothin’ wrong with that.”

“Right. Nothin’ wrong with that.” He smiled. “Seriously, though. What’s up? Where’s the romance?”

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m kind of taking this Valentine’s off,” she said.

“How’s come?” he asked, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

“Well, it’s the first Valentine’s Day since . . .” She trailed off.

“Since Tara,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Kennedy’s very cool about it. Understands, as much as anyone can.”

“So it’s you and me and bottle of beer on Buffy’s back porch avoiding the Potentials at all costs?”

“Yep,” she said. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day to us!”

She smiled and looked up at him. “You know, you told me once that if the world was gonna end, there was no place you’d rather be than with your best friend.”

“What, me? I said that? Never. Did I? Hey, wait, I did! _And_ I saved the world, too.”

“Yes. You did.” She grinned.

“I meant it,” he said, reaching out to push back her hair. “You know, you could stop being all gay and be my little sex monkey.”

“Or, maybe, I could do a spell and turn you into a girl and you could be _my_ little sex monkey.”

He made a face. “Or, maybe, we could just hang out and finish this beer and wait for the world to end.”

“Best friends.”

“To the end,” he said, raising the beer bottle in toast. “To _all_ the ends we’ve been through. May this be the end of all our endings. But in a good way where we all live and crap.”

“I love you, Xander,” she said, grinning.

He smiled and pulled her close. “I love you more.” Then he started tickling her and her laughter rang out into the night.

***

“Spike.”

He looked up from the book he’d been reading and stared at Buffy in shock. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and a picnic basket in the other.

“What’s this?” he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she said matter-of-factly, sitting beside him and placing the picnic basket between them before struggling with the cork in the wine bottle.

“And this is, what, a date?” he asked incredulously.

“No, pfft, not a _date_ ,” she said, passing him the bottle. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Poker.” 

“Poker,” he repeated.

“Yep,” she said, and opened the basket to reveal over half a dozen mewling kittens.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, smiling a very small smile in spite of himself.

“Now, you can’t eat them. I actually got them for the girls, I figured they could use something to cuddle and spoil.”

“I never _ate_ them . . .”

“You just lost them to demons that would eat them.”

He sighed. “Yes. Just one of my many sins I’ve yet to atone for.”

“I need to unchain you, you can’t play poker shackled up like that.”

He leered. “But then I might eat the little kitties and the little Slayer.”

She made a face. “Ah. Innuendo Spike is back. Don’t whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I won’t unchain you after all. Maybe what I’ll do is . . .” She paused for a moment, thinking, then dashed up the basement stairs. He waited and soon she came bounding back. 

With a camera.

“Buffy, don’t you dare . . .” he said warningly.

“Come on. It’ll be fun,” she said, grinning.

Fifteen minutes later he was covered in kittens and bellowing at her as she took pictures of ‘Cuddly Spike.’

“Oh, stop complaining. The black one really likes you,” she said.

He looked down. They all, in fact, seemed to like him, curled in little furry balls all over him, noses to tails. He sighed and his head fell back. 

“Are we done humiliatin’ the vampire?” he asked, sighing.

“But you look so cute!”

He glared. God, she could be perky. “Cute?”

“Yeah. The Big Bad with all his wittle kitties.”

“Stop that. Baby talk doesn’t suit you.” Although, he thought, it was rather . . . cute.

“It’s just so precious!” She smirked and kept clicking away with the camera.

He groaned. “Seriously, Buffy, I am going to kill you. In a non-evil but thoroughly outraged manner. Besides, if that thing uses a mirror, all you’re going to get is pictures of kittens floatin’ in the air.”

“Oh. Yeah. Hey, that’s even cooler!”

He shook his head in disgust. All this time with the Potentials had turned her back into a teenager; she sounded just like Dawn. “Buffy!”

She sighed. “Oh, fun. Ruin my fun.” She undid the shackles and he rubbed at his wrists and with a great show of distaste placed all the kittens back in basket before taking a swig of wine.

She settled down beside him. “Now. Shall we play?”

“Fine.” He grabbed the deck and started shuffling. “Deuces wild.”

She looked at him wide-eyed. “What?”

He rolled his eyes. “Right, then. Old Maid?”

She glared. “ _What_?”

“Oh, bloody hell. Old Maid. The card game? Dawn taught me.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, that’s probably more my style. Not that I consider myself an old maid or whatever I was just . . .”

“Yeah, yeah. We playin’ or not?” He eyed her closely.

She smiled. “Let’s play.”

So they played, bickering and teasing and sometimes laughing until she’d had one too many glasses of wine and fell asleep on the other end of the cot, mouth wide open and snoring loudly and kittens curled up in her hair and on her belly.

He sighed, pretending outrage when the black kitten settled in his lap, purring loudly, and then again he turned his eyes to Buffy and watched her until the sun came up, wondering how someone so sloppy drunk and drooling could still be so beautiful.

Then he grabbed the camera and took a few pictures of his own.

***


End file.
